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Can the subaltern speak in autoethnography?: knowledging through dialogic and retro/intro/pro-spective reflection to stand against epistemic violence

  • Bedrettin Yazan

    Bedrettin Yazan is an Associated Professor in Educational Linguistics at the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA. His research interests are teacher identity, autoethnography, language policies and teacher education.

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    and Ufuk Keleş

    Ufuk Keleş is an Assistant Professor at Bahçeşehir University’s ELT Department. He completed my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Alabama, US. His research interests include L2 socialization, qualitative research, autoethnography, and internationalization of higher education.

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Published/Copyright: March 19, 2024
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Abstract

In this rather unorthodox dialogic autoethnography, our discussions revolve mainly around two main questions: Does autoethnography offer qualitative researchers (us) any affordances to respond to epistemic violence in the field of applied linguistics? If so, what are possible ways to generate de/colonizing knowledge through autoethnography without falling into the trap of epistemic violence ourselves? Throughout the manuscript, we take the liberty to express our beliefs/thoughts/emotions in the most personal ways possible. Talking to each other as well as our readers/listeners/companions, we problematize the global north/south, East/West, center/periphery, conformist/critical knowledging binaries and corresponding hierarchies precipitating theft and appropriation. To us, retro/intro/pro-spective reflection and dialogic communication are two possible ways to address epistemic violence with a particular focus on theft and appropriation. Later, drawing on our lived experiences, we discuss the ramifications of making pragmatic choices to further de/colonize research practices through autoethnography.


Corresponding author: Ufuk Keleş, Department of English Language Teaching, Bahçeşehir University, Yıldız, Çırağan Cd., 34349 Beşiktaş/İstanbul, Türkiye, E-mail:

About the authors

Bedrettin Yazan

Bedrettin Yazan is an Associated Professor in Educational Linguistics at the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio, USA. His research interests are teacher identity, autoethnography, language policies and teacher education.

Ufuk Keleş

Ufuk Keleş is an Assistant Professor at Bahçeşehir University’s ELT Department. He completed my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Alabama, US. His research interests include L2 socialization, qualitative research, autoethnography, and internationalization of higher education.

  1. Research funding: The researchers did not receive any financial support from any agencies for this research.

  2. Ethical approval: The study does not involve any human participants.

  3. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  4. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Received: 2024-01-07
Accepted: 2024-01-18
Published Online: 2024-03-19
Published in Print: 2025-01-29

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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